


with these hands (i'll tear down the world)

by Ink_Beneath_Her_Fingernails



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Burns, Canon-Typical Violence, FMA Secret Santa, Fluff, Gen, Gift Fic, POV Second Person, Platonic Soulmates, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:01:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28217376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ink_Beneath_Her_Fingernails/pseuds/Ink_Beneath_Her_Fingernails
Summary: “You know,” Breda says one day, voice carefully measured, “You can take off your gloves now. We’re in the office. Nobody’s going to attack us here.”He isn’t looking at you, carefully shuffling around files on his desk instead, adding to the monotonous sounds of paperwork fluttering around the room, though you take note of the way the others still observe your interaction from the corners of their eyes.“No,” You say. “I suppose not.”The gloves stay on, anyway.(Or: Roy Mustang has seven soulmates. He is the first to know them all, and the last.)
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric & Roy Mustang, Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric & Team Mustang, Maes Hughes & Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye & Roy Mustang, Roy Mustang & Team Mustang
Comments: 5
Kudos: 49
Collections: FMA Secret Santa 2020





	with these hands (i'll tear down the world)

**Author's Note:**

> **TW:** character death (canonical), child death (canonical), character injury, burns, mentions/discussions of self-harm (canonical) ***** , minor memory loss, mentions/discussions of genocide, burns, accidental electrical shocks, implied gun violence (canonical), attempted murder (canonical)
> 
> **please let me know if there are any other warnings that should be tagged.**
> 
> the marked archive warnings don't really apply to this too much (I think), it's more of a "doesn't apply heavily, but still too much that it'd feel misleading not to mark them" sort of thing, but also for FMA I feel like it's relatively tame? idk.
> 
>  ***** specifically refers to when mustang carves the transmutation circle into his hand
> 
> happy holidays, [decoloraa](https://decoloraa.tumblr.com/)!! sorry this is a wee bit late. loved your prompts—team mustang is always fun to work with! I hope you enjoy your gift, and have a great 2021!! :)

i. It is not pretty or cute or even just sort of cool to look at.

If anything, it is, perhaps, morbidly fascinating.

The truth is, of course, that it’s actually rather disturbing on the best of days and downright disgusting on the worst, so you keep it covered up. Perhaps others would disagree with your thoughts on it, but they can hardly hold an opinion on things you’ve never voiced for a picture they’ve never seen.

It is a sick amalgamation of body parts and mythos and pieces of people that were never meant to see the world. Maybe others could look at it and see just a strange mark or an odd tattoo, but you’d never quite been able to do that.

It is, ironically enough, on the back of your right forearm, extending over your hand, and it is all the more strange and ugly for its placement.

It’s a hand, displayed from the side, reaching up toward an unforgiving sun, the fingers splayed, split so even without clear boundaries stating where, the appendage is five distinct parts, separate within the whole, not proportionate and not meant to appear together.

The thumb is tan, the darkest of the bunch (the difference made even starker with the paleness of the next finger over), with a thin, faded white scar hooking around the edge on the pad of the thumb in a curve, creating the slightest of bulges, both the mark of a small, old injury and the further distortion to the hand’s profile discrete enough that one would have to look closely for it, and you know it well only because it is painted on your skin and you have had every reason to look at it and every reason not to.

The section with the index finger is calloused—each one is, to some degree, but this one most of all, skin molded into the best way to grip a gun. (No, you will come to realize, when the army comes around and you are stupid enough to answer the call, when you start to make friends who are normal soldiers, who use guns on a day-to-day basis in this desert hell. No, not just the best way to grip a normal gun, because the callouses don’t quite match. This is the best way to grip a rifle. A sniper rifle.)

The middle finger is shorter and slighter than it should be, almost dainty, but betrayed by the tiny marks, faded even more than the scar on the thumb, that litter it, primarily on the tip, only really even showing up because they have seemingly been put there again and again and again.

The fourth finger has a tip that’s stained a faint yellow on the inside of it, and you find yourself wondering how someone could possibly smoke enough that the nicotine stains would somehow be able to get onto that particular finger when you doubt it’s one that comes into contact with cigarettes very often. (And you would know. Madame Christmas may prefer her pipe, but you still grew up in her bar, and her customers were rarely so picky.)

The fifth and final finger is slightly crooked and ink-stained, and on the back of it all, you can see the edges of what comes to be your final transmutation circle etched in red, though you don’t really realize that’s what it is until after the fact, when you’ve started working on your first pair of ignition gloves, stitching red like blood, and have to sit back because _oh_.

Dark grey feathers fall around it, and overall you can’t say what about it rubs you the wrong way but it _does_.

It’s not supposed to; it’s your soul mark.

Then again, soul marks aren’t supposed to look ugly or strange or terrifying or ironic, either, and something makes you feel like yours is all of them at once.

ii. “Can I trust you, Roy? Can I trust you with my father’s research?”

You say _yes_ because you don’t know what a mistake that answer is going to be yet.

“One last request,” she says, and you can’t find it in yourself to deny her that.

She shows you.

You study her, you honor her, you burn her.

(“Destroy it,” she says, and as this one last favor for her, you do; scorching away anything vital, cutting through symbols, marring words, leaving blistering trails through it all until it’s unrecognizable, all the while doing as little damage as you can to the hand stretching for a golden sun emblazoned across her lower back, preserving it as best as possible, considering how perfectly it lines up with the curve of one of the lower circles. (And you can’t help but think that was intentional, on his part: a warning to you and a curse to her both, and some part of you burns with the knowledge that if he wasn’t dead already, you’d wish he was. You’ve grown far too disillusioned with your old master.)

She does not notice it now, through the pain, but later when she realizes this tiny thing you tried to do for her, she will give you a small smile and thank you in that quiet way of hers, without ever having to actually say the words.)

(When you begin work on your ignition gloves, she is the first, last, and only person you allow close enough to get a clear look for any extended length of time at your final circles; part of it hope and part of it apology, all of it an unbreachable trust.

She does not make the connection.

You say nothing.)

iii. When Kain Fuery comes to work for you, he slots right into the office like he was never out of place, just a piece that none of you knew you were missing until he got there.

He’s a nervous thing, but excited, and you can work with that, so you do, pushing him into new projects, teaching him how to work under pressure, because he’s never had the trial-by-fire training in that that the rest have (doesn’t have the same ghosts of sand and blood and _injustice_ following him). You forge him not just into _good_ , which he’s always been, not just into _better_ , which he’s learned, not just into _great_ , which he’d long ago become, but into _beyond_. Into _elite_. And further, into keeping that a secret.

When he finally loses the nerves around the team entirely and figures out that you’re all friends, and that he’s a part of that now, it’s like he breathes easier, and it makes you breathe a little easier, too.

And then he actually _realizes_ that you’re _friends_.

And then he realizes what that _means_.

And then you are confronted, after work a few weeks later, when the rest of the office has already begun to pack up and move out, but you are staying behind on account of the fact that Hawkeye gave you a new stack of papers about an hour ago and the glare she shot you ten minutes ago promised that she’d shoot you if they weren’t done by tomorrow morning, by a wide-eyed, naively grinning Fuery.

“I was wondering if I could ask you a question, sir,” he chirps, and you find yourself sitting up and nodding before consciously realizing it, desperate for a break from the monotony of paperwork.

And then—

And then Fuery is sitting down on your couch and rolling up his left pant leg, and your heart stops.

“So I know you’re an alchemist, and you’re really the only one that I know, and I’ve tried looking into this a little, but you know how alchemists are so secretive, so it’s hard to find really any transmutation circles that are actually published beyond the basics, and I was just wondering if you could tell me if you know what this one is for. I know it’s a little hard to see, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask you to take a look.”

His rambling finally draws to a halt, and there, larger than yours and spread across his shin, is your soul mark, situated so it ends a little more than halfway down that part of his leg, the sun lined up perfectly with the curve of his knee.

Your mouth is suddenly very, very dry.

 _How do you have that?_ You want to ask.

 _That’s my mark_ , you want to say.

 _This doesn’t make sense_ , you want to shout.

Instead, all that comes out is a wry, “A little warning next time, Sergeant?”

Fuery flushes, and wrinkles his nose in that way he does when he’s embarrassed or something doesn’t make sense to him.

“Sorry, sir,” he responds, but you notice that he makes no move to cover the mark up again.

He’s really not going to let this go until you give him a straight answer.

Or at least until you tell him directly that you won’t.

You knew there was a reason you liked the kid.

Well, apparently there were a few reasons, if the glaring picture on his shin is any indication.

But still.

“Alright,” You murmur, and before you can stop yourself, you’re already out of your seat, moving around your desk and making your way over to sit on the coffee table in front of him. “Can I–?”

You make an aborted gesture towards the bared mark. He blinks, and seems to get what you mean, because he nods.

If it occurs to him as well how ridiculous it must look for you to be foregoing proper seating in your own office, with the smallest and slightest of the officers on your team sitting with his leg propped up on your lap, like he’s a child or you’re checking it over for injuries, he doesn’t say anything.

Your eyes scan the mark.

It’s...strange, in a way, to see it in such a size. You’re not used to it.

The way it sits so perfectly mapped out with his leg extended is odd, too, and you find yourself wanting to move it around, wondering what it looks like when his leg is bent, the skin stretched tautly and contorting it in ways it’s not meant to be.

As you take in every inch of it, details you'd never even noticed before suddenly glaringly apparent with the new scale, it only becomes more and more apparent how _real_ this is, but it still feels like you’re walking through a haze, perhaps even more the longer you look at it.

Feathers in the same place. Scar on thumb. Correct callouses on pointer finger. Dots on middle finger. Nicotine stains. Ink.

And on the back, the tell-tale signs of the transmutation circle that has been burned into your mind for years. ( _Ha_. _Burned_.)

You swallow, but the lack of moisture in your mouth doesn’t change, and the lump in your throat doesn’t go away.

“Sorry,” You finally rasp, and then let a blatant lie tumble from your lips, watching his expression turn crestfallen as it does. “I don’t know. I can’t see enough of it to figure out what it’s for. Might not even _be_ a transmutation circle.”

“That’s alright,” he says glumly, rolling the fabric back down.

You push down the guilt rising inside of you as he plods out dejectedly, and get back to your paperwork.

He won’t thank you for this.

But then, you can’t imagine that he’d thank you for telling him, either.

iv. “You know,” Breda says one day, voice carefully measured, “You can take off your gloves now. We’re in the office. Nobody’s going to attack us here.”

He isn’t looking at you, carefully shuffling around files on his desk instead, adding to the monotonous sounds of paperwork fluttering around the room, though you take note of the way the others still observe your interaction from the corners of their eyes.

“No,” You say. “I suppose not.”

The gloves stay on, anyway.

v. Most of the team thinks that you're just a little paranoid, you’re pretty sure, or that it’s a habit ingrained in you via the sandy wastelands of Ishval.

They’re not entirely wrong.

They’re just not entirely right, either.

Even Riza and Maes don’t know quite why you do it, though they are aware that both of the aforementioned assumptions don’t cover the full story, because they knew you before Ishval, and before something as innocent as gloves became synonymous with _weapon_.

Riza has known you for years, never once seen you actually take your gloves off in that time for longer than a second or two, knew you only decided to make ignition gloves your weapon of choice because it was familiar and convenient.

Maes hasn’t known you quite so well or quite so long, maybe, but wearing plain gloves at all times of every day in a military academy where all anyone wore most of the time were uniforms and uniform-adjacent semi-casual clothes tended to stand out a little in one’s mind.

(Neither of them know about the mark on your lower arm. These days, it’s one of the only secrets you keep from them.)

So no, you don’t wear the gloves because of Ishval.

But it definitely factors into the decision.

The familiar weight, the rough material, it sings through your bones like a call to arms, a warm hug; a raging storm and a crackling fire and a still lake all at once.

Even without the embroidery on the back and the sparks your ignition gloves cause, it is something you know, something you need. They keep you grounded, and you feel almost vulnerable without them.

You don’t wear your ignition gloves on a regular basis, of course, though you always carry a pair with you and are quick to switch them out if necessary.

You aren’t an idiot, after all—you’re actually rather intelligent. ‘State alchemist’ means a lot of things, after all, but to solely be a title is not one of them.

You burned Hawkeye to keep the secrets of flame alchemy out of the hands of others; you’re not going to go flaunt your circle and risk others getting too close of a look at it, because if they have the circle they might actually be able to make some headway in understanding and controlling flame alchemy, and that’s about a thousand steps further than you want anyone to ever be in the matter. You’re not about to give away your secrets and make yourself open and vulnerable to attacks, you’re not about to let somebody who might have looser morals or slightly less fine-tuned control wield such a weapon, and you’re definitely not about to make the pain she went through for you mean nothing.

You opt for a plain pair of white gloves, instead—the same ones you wore before you created your matrix.

You tell yourself it means nothing.

vi. “Yes, Hughes,” You sigh for the umpteenth time. Like just about every single time the two of you end up in the same city, he’s decided to make a personal visit to bother you in place of his nightly phone call, and he’s even more unbearable than usual on account of the fact that just a few weeks ago they found out that Gracia is pregnant. “I know, Gracia is amazing. I know, she’s going to be a wonderful mother. I know, your child is going to be perfect. I know, you’re so excited. I know, she’s your soulmate. We’ve been over all of this and more. Can you go now? I have work to do.” _And Riza will actually murk me if I don’t get it done tonight because it’s been sitting on my desk for the past three weeks_ , goes unsaid. He’s known you long enough that it should really just be implied at this point, anyway.

You expect him to do his usual thing—to start gushing more about his wife and soon-to-be child and how he just can’t help it because she’s so wonderful, and then make some jabs at you about when you’re going to settle down and get married yourself until you physically remove him from the office with your own two hands. Instead, he freezes, face suddenly a little surprised, a little bittersweet-somber, and a lot more serious.

Instantly, you begin to turn over the past few days in your head, trying to figure if there’s anything that might have been going on that might necessitate Lieutenant Colonel Hughes the intelligence officer suddenly talking to you instead of Maes Hughes the husband and friend, even if he doesn’t quite look like he’s made the switch to the former right then, or if there’s something you’ve said in the past few minutes that might’ve caused it.

“No,” he says, blinking, like he thought you knew and was surprised you didn’t. “She’s not, actually.”

And it takes you a second, but after that, it clicks.

You hadn’t really meant that last part about the two of them being soulmates _literally_ , but apparently he had taken it that way. It suddenly occurs to you that you’d never actually really discussed this subject in depth with him before.

“What?” You ask, just to check.

“We’re not soulmates. One of hers died a few years ago, and the other lives near West City. I haven’t found mine yet.”

Huh.

That’s...well, it’s not necessarily uncommon, but you’d think, with the way they were with each other—

Well, perhaps some people are meant to be together even if they aren't soulmates.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Barely two seconds later, he’s gushing about ideas they’ve started coming up with for potential baby names already, and after the initial moment of whiplash from the swift mood change, you forget all thoughts of soulmates and go straight back to regretting not barricading the office door as soon as you heard he was in East.

vii. Edward Elric is chock full of piss and vinegar, simmering with a bitterness born from vengeance, spitting curses and genius and allegories like it’s second nature to him; a child with everything to prove and nothing to lose.

It clicks into place around the sixth time you hear him spout off a reference to the tale of Icarus, which seems to be one of his favorites.

Because of _course_.

The feathers on your skin are gunmetal grey, the same color as Al’s armor, and the sun is the exact same shade of gold as Ed’s hair and eyes and skin and _everything_.

And neither of them have any memory of their soul marks.

“It was part of the toll,” Al explains to Fuery when he asks, one night where he waits in the outer office while Ed grudgingly gives you his report. Neither of them seem to be aware that the door isn’t fully shut, and both of you can hear them, though Ed seems to mostly tune it out as he rushes through the prattle, trying to get in and out of the office as fast as possible. You, on the other hand, are far more capable of and interested in multitasking.

There can’t really be much harm in him explaining this, you think, because the whole team knows how the Elric brothers lost their bodies, though they know better than to probe too much or talk to anyone else about it, and the brothers seem to be growing to like and trust the team more and more.

“Losing his arm, or in my case, my body, means losing _all_ of it. Ed’s was on his right shoulder, so when he lost his arm, he lost his mark, and both of us lost all memory of it. We’re pretty sure ours matched, though. At least, that’s what Granny and Winry say. We think that's why we can't remember each other's either, y'know? They think we’ve got other soulmates out there, though. I don’t really know how I feel about that. I’d be excited to meet them, but… well, it’s not really like we’d know if we did, is it? It’s just—well, put it this way. It’s one thing to go through life and find your soulmate or soulmates but be unable to really prove it’s really you that they’re connected to, but it’s an entirely different thing to go through life knowing you could meet your soulmate at any time and have no idea. And, sure, maybe this is the way it is for a lot of people—nearly everybody, in fact—but it’s still that difference between not knowing and not being _able_ to know, knowing that you could stare full-on at their mark, take a picture of it, analyze every single detail that was there, and never have any clue as to the significance, pass it off as a cool tattoo or just another neat mark instead of the one that’s supposed to mean something to you, supposed to tether you to some point in the world, and then walk away without ever realizing what you’ve just let go. It’s...almost kind of terrifying, to think about.”

 _And I’ve thought about it a lot_ , goes unsaid, but most definitely not unheard.

Fate, you decide, just loves screwing you over.

And the worst part is, this one time, you’re not even going to try to fight it.

  
  
  
  
  


vii. The call connects.

Before you can say anything at all, Maes is talking, and it quickly becomes apparent that this was not what you originally thought it was, not what you were expecting in the slightest.

“–really are a smart man, Lieutenant Colonel. Did you ever think that’d be the cause of your death?”

Your blood runs cold.

“Hughes,” You breathe, intimately aware of not only just how bad of a situation he might be in right now, but that if the other person heard you, it could escalate into something much worse, much faster. “Hughes, where are you?”

“Come on, have a heart, will you?” You can practically hear the _shink_ of one of his knives in that single sentence, and the only things to keep you from sighing or screaming is that you’ve just directed Riza (via frantic motioning and incoherent writing that probably only she was able to translate) to contact Central and get them to send out a backup squad and med team to find and help him, and that if Hughes can hear you, even his dramatic ass isn’t going to worry about potentially ruining an awesome one-liner by dropping as much information as he can. “I’ve got a wife and daughter waiting for me. So that last thing I’m going to do is die on them in some old phone boo–” his voice grew louder and more strained toward the end, what you could tell were the beginnings of him attacking, but anything else he had to say was cut off by a sound you know as well as your own heartbeat.

Quickly, you scribble down what you need to and pass a notepad to Riza, and give up all pretenses of stealth or calmness, instead shouting into the phone to try to get Maes to say something.

A long silence, shaky breathing.

The phone clicks off.

All you can do is stare across the table at the words you’d scratched out, glaring up at you like an accusation of the worst kind.

_HUGHES_

_PHONE BOOTH_

_GUN_

_KNOX_

  
  
  
  
  


ix. You don’t think their failed scrape with human transmutation were when the Elric brothers stopped being children, you just think it was the final nail in the coffin.

Even so, they’re still rather naive and inexperienced in many aspects of life, and it’s easy to forget that, sometimes.

He should’ve been expecting it, really. Who joins the military and doesn’t prepare themselves to deal with death?

Even the Elric brothers, in all their genius, can’t prevent or undo that terrible phenomenon; they’ve proved that quite thoroughly.

You know it’s not fair, then, to say what you said, but you do it anyway, because someday he’s going to take lives, and he’s going to have lives taken from him, and at the end of the day, he has a brother to come home to.

Even if neither of them believe it or agree with it, you’d much rather Ed come back to Al and never be able to look him in the eye again than him not coming back at all. Maybe that’s not your decision to make, either, but you’re damn well going to prepare him for when it’s one he has to call.

He can’t do this every time.

It’s unreasonable.

More than that, it’s pathetic, irrational.

Who cries this much over one little girl they didn’t even know for a full month?

(When you go home that night, the very first thing you do is carefully take off your jacket, slowly move to the bathroom, and throw up.

You’ve seen a lot worse in Ishval, but that was then and there, and this is here and now. Things like this aren’t supposed to happen during peacetime, and though you’ve always known that they do anyway, that doesn’t make dealing with them any easier. (It is easy to forget, sometimes, that there is no such thing as _peacetime_ in a country like Amestris.)

Alchemy is a wondrous, beautiful thing.

But it is also a poisonous, deadly one.

It’s the kind of thing that can seemingly work miracles just as well as it can make a single man responsible for the deaths of thousands of people in only days or weeks. It’s the kind of thing that can cause unspeakable horrors if it wants to, whether by direction of its user or by driving them to dire lengths in the name of it.

In this case, it was both.

What kind of father does that to his daughter?

What kind of colleagues didn’t see the warning signs?)

x. (You make sure Erin Tucker gets a proper grave, even with no body left to bury.)

xi. It hurts to wear your gloves.

You’re in a hospital, have just destroyed a supposedly unkillable being, begun unraveling the threads of the horrible web encircling the entire country, and what you are most worried about is that it hurts to wear your gloves. They scratch at the cuts on the back of your hand.

And you’re in a hospital, and the nurses always tsk and raise unimpressed eyebrows at you when they see you eyeing them anyway, so you just. Don’t wear them.

It’s–

You’re not quite sure what it is.

It’s terrifying, you suppose, to be this incredibly exposed in any environment. It’s been years since you’ve even taken those gloves off in the presence of another person.

It’s discomforting, too, for you, because it means that you have to look at exactly what you did, unlike the burn engulfing your side.

You never quite liked your mark, but you can admit that you’re angry with yourself, a bit, that you did this, marred one of the last things you had left.

The perfect lines of scabs form the circle you so well know, and though the nurses had said that it shouldn’t leave any lasting scars, you’re doubtful that the picture isn’t going to end up warping at least a bit.

The circle you carved lines up perfectly with the sun.

When they eventually move you and Havoc into the same room once they’ve got him stabilized, and Riza and the Elrics come to visit you both, you keep the hand shoved beneath your blanket the whole time.

(The long conversation gives you more than enough time to focus on the rough skin of Riza’s hand when she hands you a pad of paper and your fingers brush, on Ed’s golden countenance and penchant for old mythos, on Al’s armor, forged and reforged and always the same, on how Havoc taps out the one cigarette he’s allowed for the day on the ashtray with yellowed fingers, on Knox, have they gotten any news from him that they just aren't able to pass on right now, how stable is Hughes since the last time you checked—

It also gives you more than enough other things to focus on, and push the rest out of your mind for now.)

Somehow, it seems, you are even more ashamed to let it show than usual, and this time, it does not have everything to do with the mark itself.

(And then, of course, Havoc drops the bomb about his legs—how had he not _told_ you already? How had you not _noticed_ already? How could you have let this happen?—and suddenly, you're full of an entirely different sort of shame, and you've got a lot more important things to worry about than things like dignity or soul marks or scars.

Right. This is serious. You can't afford to be distracted. That's how things like _this_ happen.)

xii. They scatter your team to the far corners of the country—put Riza right in Bradley's deadly grasp, put Fuery on the front lines—and there's very little consolation to be found in that.

Most of it boils down to: the fewer of them that are closer to Central, the fewer they actually have much immediate power over without tipping their hand first, they're able to scout out new allies and resources in other places, and you're pretty sure you're supposed to be able to know if one of them dies. (And as for Falman—well, you trust Armstrong not to let him get killed if she can help it, and you trust him not to give her any reason to do so.)

You don't believe in luck, not really, but some part of you can't help the thought that maybe if you all can scrape enough of it from the depths of your soul and the bottoms of your boots, you might all just make it to the other side of this thing alive.

The rest of you knows that the chances of all of you doing so are slim.

But you've taught your people well. If there's one thing they can do, it's _survive._

And _luck_ has nothing to do with _that_.

xiii. After everything is over—well.

Nothing is ever quite _over_ , is it? Not in this country.

But—after the homonculi are gone, your people are safe, Ishval's recovery has been kickstarted, Hughes is _awake_ again, and the Elrics have their bodies back—you—

You don't tell them.

It's a choice—and maybe it's a dumb one, maybe it's one that you'll end up regretting, but things are finally going so _well_ for once and—

Is it such a crime to just want a little peace? To keep a little secret to yourself for once, and not have dozens of lives tied to its reveal?

No, you don't tell them, but unlike every other time before, this time it isn't because you've been holding your breath all your life. This time, it isn't because you're genuinely _terrified_ of what might happen if that information got out.

This time, it's because you _can_. It's because you _want_ to.

It is the first secret you've ever really let yourself _own_ before, and it feels glorious on your lips, your lungs, your chest, as you breathe and breathe and _breathe_ , and the first time Fullmetal takes the opportunity since the end of the first age of your country to get philosophical with you, it occurs to you that you could just— _tell_ him. The words could just spill from your mouth, at any moment, to _any_ of them, and the knowledge sends a jolt of relief and adrenaline through you so pure it nearly brings you to tears in the middle of his less-cynical-than-usual theoreticals.

When Breda's explaining to the rest of the very unimpressed group with a faint, embarrassed flush on his cheeks how he got the scar on his thumb from him being stupid while cutting the rind off a watermelon when he was a teen, you could tell them.

When Gracia's soulmate comes to visit from the West, and Hughes gets extra sappy with you about it, you could tell him.

When Al first comes back to himself enough after he's been returned to his proper body, and the first thing he does is stretch a hand up and out, almost grasping for the sore sight of the light of the sun and blocking it in the same gesture in a mimicry of the hodge-podge hand stamped over his heart, you could tell them.

When Havoc confesses that he wants to stop smoking and he might need your help, and you think about the yellow stained fingertip painted on your skin, you could tell him.

When Fuery's helping you set up a new receiving system in your new office, and he accidentally shocks himself and immediately takes the finger in his mouth to ease the pain, seemingly without realizing, you could tell him.

When you're having a team dinner at the Hughes' and Riza puts her hand on your arm while the pleasant conversation flows, rubbing a calloused thumb over the skin, you could tell them.

You could—there are so many opportunities that you could. But this feels like one of the freest choices the world re-setting is allowing you, so you let it be. (The weight on your chest only gets lighter the more your hands heal—the scar on your right one strikes right through the sliver of your transmutation circle, and touches little else. It feels like being released from a lifelong set of chains.)

There will be more opportunities, and you will never cease to wonder at the genuine ability to be able to turn every single one of them over in your head and seriously contemplate taking one of them. Things are going so well in this new order of things, and you're hesitant to risk breaking the spell. They can forgive you for this indulgence, you know—they've forgiven you already for so much more, so much worse.

You've waited this long, though.

You figure you can go a little longer, smiling at your team in a realer way than ever before, trying to fix your country bit by bit, being there to support them as much as you can, and wait for an opportunity that feels _right_ to come along.

Until then, and maybe even after, you've got the best people in the world at your back, and a whole lot of work to get done.

For the first time in a long time, life is good.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll leave it up to you to decide if any of the others figured any of it out themselves ;)
> 
> I'm going to be completely honest here....
> 
> I just. kinda forgot about falman. and then I realized I couldn't figure out a good way to work him into the main soulcrew(??) without it feeling really forced. I'm sorry about that! (tbh though... while I do like the idea of him being soulmates with mustang's team, I also really like the idea of him being soulmates with the main briggs crew, so I'm just pretending that that's where he stands in all this.) hope you enjoyed it anyway!!
> 
> \- also soulmates can be romantic _or_ platonic in this universe, mustang's team just happens to be platonic.
> 
> \- yes this is bc of the briggs crew and gracia and her faceless nameless soulmates bc I'm still not sure if I'd prefer them to be romantic (meaning polycule time) or platonic or some mix so I'm leaving it up to y'all to decide if that's something you want to think about lmao
> 
> \- also regardless of what relationship gracia has w her soulmates,,, try and tell me hughes wouldn't be so fucking ecstatic to meet them and completely accepting of their relationships w each other. like if nothing else he'd like them immediately bc they make gracia happy and he has someone who will actually listen to him gush about her for once and totally gets it and will gush _with_ him?? and who will love elicia probably as much as the hugheses do?? _all_ of those = _major brownie points_. he would _love_ them and that _is_ a hill I will die on
> 
> \- the little dot marks on the middle one are supposed to be those marks you get sometimes after you shock yourself really bad via accidentally touching a live outlet with your fingertips?? idk that feels like something fuery would have a lot of experience with
> 
>   
> [come yell at me on tumblr :)](https://ink-beneath-her-fingernails.tumblr.com/)


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